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6.3. Font-Management Tools

In this section, we shall describe a handful of tools that are useful, or even indispensable in certain cases, for the effective management of fonts under Mac OS. We shall describe only those tools that run under Mac OS X (while noting their compatibility with Mac OS 9), except, of course, in the case of important tools that have not yet been ported to OS X (such as ATM).

6.3.1. Tools for Verification and Maintenance

We have already mentioned the dangers that fonts face under Mac OS—dangers stemming primarily from the fact that the files that contain them are permanently left open, since the system needs to have regular access to them in order to load the information necessary for displaying text. A font file is in direct contact with the system; when the system crashes, the file can also be affected. This fact explains why fonts are the most fragile files on the Macintosh. And a corrupted font is often the cause of new system crashes.

If we have no cure for this situation, we can at least limit the damage by regularly checking the status of our fonts and replacing with fresh copies those files that have been corrupted. One popular tool for performing this sort of maintenance on the font repertoire is Font Doctor, by Morrison SoftDesign [275].

This tool allows us to verify and repair all the fonts contained in the folders specified by the user. When repairs are impossible, the font is set aside in a special folder. Font Doctor also plays a preventive ...

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